Noboru Tsubaki
In the group show “Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s and 1990s,” Blum & Poe offers a survey of the country’s practitioners of two decades. “Part 1” is currently being held at the Los Angeles gallery, with Noboru Tsubaki, Yukinori Yanagi, and Tsuyoshi Ozawa are among the artists featured in the show. “Part 1” and “Part 2” are curated by Mika Yoshitake.
Painter Hiroomi Ito uses traditional means to produce contemporary scenes and ideas. And he takes this process further than just creating his own color pigments; he actually creates the rice paper on which his works are crafted. In these works, Ito explores modern social issues as they relate to customs of the past.
Kyosuke Tchinai (b. 1948) is a Japanese artist known for his ethereal paintings made with acrylics and precious metals on washi paper. The artist employs traditional aesthetics and techniques that help pay tribute to his homeland while reflecting his training in Western style painting. Through his unique medium, the artist fuses these two worlds to present a modern interpretation of both Japanese and European art forms.
Stephen Friedman gallery in London is currently showing their fourth solo exhibition with acclaimed Japanese artist, Yoshitomo Nara, covered here. Following his recent solo exhibitions at Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan, Asia Society Museum, New York, Asia Society Hong Kong Center and Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland, “New Works” is the simple title of the current exhibition by one of the most important living contemporary Japanese artists.
Dreams are considered important, real, and public in some cultures, but absurd, irrational and personal in others. Japan has its own history of dreaming, and the importance of dreams has evolved through Japanese supernatural beliefs and art for centuries. “Dreams are like strange stories,” says Tokyo based artist Atsuko Goto, who builds on her own visions of dreams in her other-worldly mixed media drawings. “I draw what comes up from our unconscious, like hidden feelings reflected in our dreams.”
Miho Hirano’s delicate portraits of young goddesses are in and of nature, adorned by pastel flowers, butterflies, and humming birds. They stand blissfully as slender tree branches wrap them in love and color, or wade neck high in a shallow river. We are immediately reminded of “Flora,” represented in Botticelli’s “Allegory of Spring”, a profusion of flowers coming out of her mouth.